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Wednesday, March 17, 2010

Disgusted

As a result, many are not going to buy GS cookies any more. That's fine, for it will give the Nat'l Souts much less $$ to work with, to do this type of thing,

However, most local GS troops have nothing to do with Nat'l decisions, and are run by ordinary people like us, as are the local GS offices and GS camps. GS cookie money also goes to fund the troops and camperships. Ultimately, it is the girls in the troops who will suffer from a boycott of cookie sales.

As a former GS and GS Leader, troop organizer/consultant, Service Team Chairman, Catholic religious awards leader, Day Camp counselor and Day Camp Assistant Director, my suggestion for those who wish to boycott is to let the Nat'l Girl Scout Leadership know that you do NOT approve of this and find a few troops that are being lead by GOOD people, donate to them the equivalent of what you would have spent on GS cookies, and directly to local offices clearly bookmarked for Camperships to local GS camps......

If there are OTHER girls organizations out there that are similar to the GS, put your daughters in them, but until there ARE replacements everywhere, the good leaders, as well as the girls themselves need to be supported in the good things that Scouting teaches and affirms.

I saw the 'feminist' things beginning when I still served long ago as an Adult Girl Scout (have the Thanks Badge and the St Elizabeth Seton Awards for what I did during those years). But NONE of the troops in our area were run by any radical feminist, and would never have supported this action of the Nat'l Board. I also think that many (most) today would feel the same way.

I also would like to see some of the alternatives to the GS STARTED all over the place, even more than a cookie boycott. The alternatives would give parents a better choice as to where to put their daughters, to learn the GOOD things about what the GS teach, the values that began the Scouting movement long ago. That would remove not only the cookie funding, but also the DUES paid by the Leaders and the Scouts from the National organization, and give girls a place to learn many valuable things.

The author of the above article named one such alternative at the end of her article, though I have not heard of it. I have also recently heard of Little Flowers, though I also know nothing about them.

While the Boy Scouts have been attacked from without, the GS have been taken over from within, but the local troops are NOT run in the same way as Boy Scouts are, with a monthly guide for meetings.

At least, they weren't.

The Leaders of each troop is therefore free to plan their own meetings and outings, working on Badges, Camping, etc. To a large extent, this even includes how a Badge is earned. Parents can work with girls on them, and the Troop works on some togethter. While there are requirements for each Badge, how it is completed is in the control of the Leader, most times.

I wrote the above part before I read a link to a decade old article hyperlinked in the one above. She'd also written The Cookie Crumbles When I read this one, I was even more disgusted, for I knew NOTHING about this fact:

In 1975, a Catholic archdiocese cut off all support of the Girl Scouts because of their sex-ed program

I was married in 1970, and wanted a family that was not coming. I needed to be with children, and volunteered to work as a counselor at a local GS Day Camp for nearly the entire summer. That Fall, I also took a Brownie GS Troop, as Leader. That was in 1972. I noted the difference from what I remember the GS oath being, but didn't think much of it, as it had been a LONG time since I had been a Brownie-Cadette Girl Scout. In the next few years, I also volunteered for Brownie Troop Organizer/Consultant (2 jobs) and when no one else would, added Service Team Chairman to my volunteer jobs, in addition to my full time nursing job... I also became the Ass't Day Camp Director of our local GS Camp the summer of 1973. I loved it all. I loved the Girls.

I wanted them to also know that Girl Scouts owed loyalty to GOD as well as their country, so I began to work with my Scouts on the Religious Awards, and then with other troops as well.

For all of this, I was awarded the second highest awards in Girl Scouts, the Thanks Badge, and in Catholic Scouting, the St Elizabeth Ann Seton award. This was about 1981. I stayed in Scouts another couple of years, but had to give it up just as my own daughters became old enough to join, because our life took a DRASTIC change just a year later............I did day camp for awhile longer, but eventually gave up my troop and the other jobs in order to raise my kids alone.

I am therefore, not only disgusted, but also ANGRY in all of the time I was serving, I knew NOTHING about any sex ed program, and NOTHING about the Archdiocese' decision to remove Scouts!!! Though I saw some changes I was not comfortable with, I also knew that those changes were NOT wide-spread in our area.

I am therefore truly disgusted by the fact that to all of this, it seems that the National Girl Scouts of America have now also added DECEIT to their offenses... and encourage you to also read this article: